Above him stretched a leafless branch of elm, and on its clean-cut, fretted edge a moving blur intruded—a blur which swelled and shrunk in steady rhythm, and twitched and wriggled forward in short jerks, so closely welded to the bark, so neatly matched in hue to it, that, but for movement, it had cheated sight.
The Fox Cub watched it furtively, his yellow eyes upturned. It checked, and from the end of it dropped a soft feathery plume, and hung and dangled lightly. Its lines were unmistakable, it was a tail. Then, as the Fox Cub gazed, the head took shape—a flat-browed, taper-muzzled head, with shimmery velvet eyes, which seemed to look beyond as well as at him.
Such was the Marten couched. Their eyes met, and he saw her rampant. She leapt from where she lay to where, six feet above, the branch forked double. Astride on this, her forefeet on the upper arm, her hind-feet on the lower, she faced about and screamed—
"Ai-yah-ai-ee! Ai-yah-ai-ee! A Fox! A Fox!"
The scream dropped to a whine, then to a bleat—"Huh-huh-huh-huh! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!"—then swelled into a scream again.
Out leapt the Fox Cub, impudent, and faced the music.
"The last part again, Marten," he cried. "Oh, please, the last part again!"
The Marten stared, mouth open "A cub!" she gasped; "not even a grown fox—a woolly, blunt-nosed cub."